To Destroy the Invincible
by PenelopeClearwaterMonkey
Summary: Harry knows he must avenge those he's lost, but how to defeat the terrible Dark Lord, Voldemort? Will mastery of Oclumency, connecting with owls, forming his own "Order" of students, taming snakes, and making powerful new friends be enough to stop him?
1. The Neighbors Cometh

In the spare room of number four Privet Drive, and still in bed, lay the famous Harry Potter. He was awake, but his mind was stuck on his newfound obsession of his own self worthlessness. It was all his fault. If he had never had lived through the Triwizard Cup or maybe even died in a fall during a Quiditch match, perhaps people such as Sirius wouldn't have had to die. His parents had died for him and now, as Harry's former father figure, Sirius had gone with them. Their deaths were all linked in the fact that they had all perished to save Harry.

_But I'm not a great wizard! I can't accomplish amazing feats! Its all just luck whether I survive or not!_ Harry bounced out of bed and began to pace around the room. _How am _I _supposed succeed where everyone else has failed? What do I have that they don't?!_ Harry pounded his fist onto his dresser. _Nothing!

* * *

_

Number five Privet Drive, however, contained no sulking young wizard or anyone or anything for that matter. It was empty, its last inhabitants leaving to spend the rest of their retirement in the Caribbean. The house had been left empty for several weeks after their departure for sunnier days, but now, in the driveway of number five, was an enormous moving truck with the name Marco's Moving Co. stapled to its the sides.

Across the street and into number four's kitchen would show that the arrival had put the house into a state of excitement. For pressed against the front windowpanes were the noses of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, eagerly assessing their new neighbors to be.

"It was a shame the Walsteads had to go," Petunia tried to sigh to cover her excitement. "Good neighbors they were."

"Yes, a shame, a shame..." muttered Uncle Vernon still keeping his eyes pinned to the moving van doors.

Dudley, who was still at the table, began to pound on his plate in a chant of, "Breakfast, breakfast!

"Oh yes Dudders, in a minute." Petunia said without looking at him as she watched as though entranced as a couple muscular moving men climbed out and began unloading.

Dudley grimaced at his empty plate and then back to his entranced parents, muttering unhappily. He kept muttering until he noticed Harry standing sulkily in the doorway.

"Get my breakfast, Harry." Dudley commanded, sneering at him.

"Get it yourself fatty." Harry answered back, snapping out of his depressed state to tell off his cousin.

"Get Dudley his breakfast Harry or you'll be in your room all day!" Uncle Vernon bellowed over his shoulder at Harry. Harry did spend most of his day in his room, but he did enjoy taking a walk to the park every now and then and decided to listen to Uncle Vernon just incase he'd get the urge to go there later on during the day. Dudley just grinned as Harry moved to the stove to make breakfast for both of them.

"Ooooh!" squealed Aunt Petunia, "Look at some of the furniture and decorations they own! They look like they're straight from a museum!"

"They must've traveled all over the world!" Mr. Dursley said smiling, "We'll have to have them over for luncheon to welcome them over. They must have seen a lot of interesting things in their travels."

A green Ford drove into the driveway as they were looking on, sending the house into a frenzy of excitement.

"They're here!" Petunia said excitedly, almost hopping up and down in excitement as the family climbed out of the car.

"They have a daughter your age Dudley!" Vernon informed, looking over his shoulder to Dudley, except, Dudley wasn't there. Vernon found Dudley squeezed between him and Petunia at the window, surprising his parents, who were always surprised when Dudley was interested in anything other than his next meal.

"Oh," Dudley said staring out the window, "She's cute. I'll have to tell Piers that I'm having lunch with my family today."

"Oh this is wonderful!" Aunt Petunia exclaimed. "What a lovely family for my Dudders to be welcomed into!"

Uncle Vernon mentioned something about how they hadn't even talked to them yet and Harry almost gagged at the prospect of anyone seeing Dudley as more than the fat piece of lard he was. Harry also sent his deepest sympathy out to the poor girl, truly pitying her and her future confrontations with Dudley.

Harry was sitting on a swing at around lunch time, his relatives seemed so keen to make a good impression on their new neighbors that they hadn't just sent Harry to his room, but thrown him out of the house entirely. Harry hadn't really cared to meet them anyway; his mind was still tormented over last year's events and thoughts of the future.

* * *

_Someday I'll have to face Him, Voldemort_. Harry looked at the sky as he thought. _Sirius died to save me and many other people have put their life on the line for me, but for what?_ Harry kicked at the dirt under his feet, sending dust billowing about. _Can I ever be Voldemort's equal? An equal, when I always have to be rescued? He's the Dark Lord for goodness sakes! And I'm only Harry Potter!!! _"I'm only HARRY POTTER!!!" Harry yelled out loud to some invisible interrogator.

_Only someone more than this Harry Potter could ever defeat a Dark Lord...._ Harry slumped in his swing just a little more. A little voice nagged at him inside his head with a far fetched idea in Harry's opinion, _"Then _become _a someone more than this Harry Potter."_

Maybe it was his lack of breakfast this morning, as Dudley had eaten both his own and Harry's, or maybe it was an effect of remaining depressed for too long, but whatever the reason, Harry took this idea into serious consideration. _Sirius died for me, believing I was worth it. Is sulking here going to make his death count?_

Harry's more practical side stepped in here. _And _how_ do you suppose you can ever raise your assets and strengths to the levels of which Voldemort possesses?_

_Well how far apart are they really?_ Harry's other voice seemed to have gone a little off the deep end on this one... _Seriously, list his assets in comparison to yours! They can't be that far off! And if they are, then at least you know where exactly you're lacking._

Harry picked a stick up from underneath the nearby slide and drew a chart in the dry dirt under his feet. He put his name on top of one column and Voldemort's on the other. _Let's see, Voldemort has lots of followers willing to bend to his every whim..._ Harry thought as he drew "Death Eaters" into the dirt under Voldemort's name. _And he's a Parselmouth and has a giant snake. _Harry put that down in the dirt as well. _He has connections and spies everywhere. He's just about the most powerful wizard ever. He's mastered Oclumency and Legilimens. He can kill countless numbers of wizards and muggles with his killing curse. Just about the whole wizarding world is terrified of him._ Harry finished with putting the words "scary" under the last part of the list.

Though his intention was to view Voldemort as less intimidating, the impressive list he had generated only made him feel more pessimistic about his chances of survival this next school year. _You haven't written your own list!_ That little voice was determined to get the better of Harry, and Harry was now sure that skipping breakfast had been a very foolish thing to do.

_Well what _do_ I have? _Harry thought, staring at the chart and then to clouds above him. _I have friends, but I don't want to have to use them. I'm good at Quiditch, but I really doubt Voldemort is ever going to challenge me to a quiditch match to determine who lives or dies._ Harry's list was looking very sorry indeed; "friends" and "quiditch" seemed to almost quiver in fear next to "murderer" and "Death Eaters".

Harry then remembered something Dumbledore had told him once before. "...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us protection forever." _But Voldemort fixed that!_ Harry thought sadly, adding it to Voldemort's list of assets. _It no longer hurts him to touch me,_ Harry's insides squirmed as he remembered the night Voldemort was reborn and Cedric died_. _But the little voice changed into that of Dumbledore yet again, "...the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength." Harry remembered Dumbledore saying something about how Voldemort couldn't possess him as he had tried to last year as Harry's heart was too full of love for something as impure as Voldemort to possess. _It may protect me, _Harry thought, _But losing ones we loved hurts more than its worth to have. _

Harry grudgingly scratched out "love" under his name, wondering how terribly sappy it must sound to have it as an asset. His assets, Harry realized, were few and weak against Voldemort's. He had another year ahead of him, and this year he must spend it in evening up the score he decided, but the question was, how?

Harry was about to begin onto another tangent of thought when a real voice spoke in his ear to ask, "Whatcha doin'?"


	2. Odd Girl

Disclaimer: I hereby state that all the characters, creatures, spells, and whatnot found in J. K. Rowling's books belong to HER (not me). Though Meyla does belong to me, I made her...she is mine.

A/N: I'm sorry if this seems really short right now. I have the whole thing stored up in my head, it's just taking a while to write it all down.

Harry scrambled out of the swing to rub his writing away before whoever it was behind him saw it. He turned around while still crouching to look into the very pretty and utterly bewildered face of a most peculiar girl. She wore overall jeans and a white tank top with dark black hair cascading down her back under a little painter's hat. She was peculiar not just in her dress, but that she was talking to Harry Potter, the eccentric nephew of the Dursley's.

She smiled warmly at him and said in a cheerful voice, "I heard you talking to yourself while I walked by and thought you looked rather lonely. Do you have any friends here?"

She must've have mistaken Harry's sulking for loneliness, and Harry wasn't in the mood for anyone's pity. "I have friends at school," Harry replied gruffly.

"Oh, do you go to a nearby school or perhaps a boarding school, and that's why your friends can't be with you?" she continued pleasantly, seemingly unperturbed by Harry's gruff behavior.

"Errrr....yeah, I go to a boarding school," Harry replied, realizing she must not know who he was or else she'd know that he supposedly went to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys and was to be avoided like the criminal he undoubtedly was.

"Wonderful!" She answered jubilantly, startling Harry, "Me too!" She then put a finger to her lips to ponder for a moment before talking again, "Perhaps, we should form a sort of truce to ensure an enjoyable summer. So, you want to be buddies for the summer?"

Harry was shocked at her brusque behavior, but as he had nothing better to entertain him with over the summer break he submitted. "Err...sure."

She smiled down at him and helped pull him up, "My name is Meyla Divnet." Harry wiped his dusty hands off on his trousers and hoped the dirt didn't show on his pants. "And you're Harry Potter...I heard you yell out your name earlier."

Harry looked down in embarrassment; he didn't think anyone had heard him.

"Well," she continued as though nothing was the matter with Harry, "We have lots to catch up on if we're going to be buddies, best get started." She sat down on the bottom of the bent up slide with her elbows on her knees and her hands under her chin looking at Harry smiling.

Harry smiled back. Though she was a bit odd, Harry felt he could learn to like her.

They spent the entire afternoon in the park talking about muggle things such as school friends, Privet Drive, where Meyla and her parents had traveled to, and a wide variety of complaints about Dudley from Harry.

Meyla laughed at the story of how Dudley had a giant snake set on him at the zoo and even more at the time Dobby dropped a bowl of pudding on a dinner guest's head. Harry couldn't have told her about any of the magic involved in these stories and had to change bits here and there to have it make sense with the muggle world, but Meyla still found all Harry's stories enjoyable nevertheless.

Meyla laughed at everything. She was a bubble of positive energy exploding into laughter every ten seconds. Not only that, but her laughter was contagious, pushing all depressing thoughts of death and Dark Lords out of the way.

They set back home around dinner, parting ways between Number four and Number five. Of course, she had to be one of Harry's new neighbors, because how could anyone from normal, boring Privet Drive be so unusually interesting.


	3. Thoughts and Letters

A/N: I must appoligize for the lack of paragraph indentations and that the "chart" doesn't look like a chart. I am tired of battling with the QuickEdit system and this is the best i can do. Sorry.

Harry Potter sat on his bed, watching his owl, Hedwig, eat. Harry was thinking about how much pleasanter his summer was going to be with someone to talk to when another owl, a tawny brown, flew at his window. Harry jumped up to open it, he hadn't received any mail yet this summer! Ripping away the envelope excitedly, Harry read the following:

**Dear Mr. H. J. Potter,**

**The Ministry of Magic's Education Committee is pleased to present you with your O.W.L. results, as shown below:**

**Charms: Exceeds Expectations/Outstanding**

**Transfiguration: Outstanding**

**Herbology: Outstanding**

**Defense Against the Dark Arts: Outstanding**

**Care for Magical Creatures: Outstanding**

**Divination: Dreadful**

**Astronomy: Acceptable**

**History of Magic: Poor**

**Potions: Outstanding**

**The Ministry of Magic's Education Committee congratulates you on receiving O.W.L.S in Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care for Magical Creatures, Astronomy, and Potions.**

**Respectively yours,**

**Griselda Marchbanks**

Harry gaped at the letter in his hands, not believing what he saw. He had expected to do poorly in Divination and History of Magic and not amazingly well in Astronomy as it had been interrupted by Umbridge, but he did not expect his Potions grade to be so high! He had managed a solid Outstanding in Potions, his least favorite class!

Harry fell back onto his bed smiling to himself. _I can't wait to see the smirk wiped clean off Snape's face when he finds out I got an Outstanding in his subject!_

Harry was still grinning at the ceiling when a second owl flew into his room and landed on his chest, pacing around impatiently. Harry sat up in surprise, causing the owl on top of him to nip at him in protest, and quickly undid the letter attached to the second bird. It read:

**Dear Harry James Potter,**

**I must congratulate you firstly on receiving your O.W.L.S. You did very well and _most_, with a few exceptions where you did not perform up to standards, of your professors and I are very pleased. I would also like to thank you for helping instruct the students part of your Defense Against the Dark Arts club in important defenses their present teacher somehow forgot to supply them with. I can truthfully tell you that _all_ the fifth year students in your club received E's or higher on their O.W.L.S. I thank you for all your help, as the students couldn't have scored so well without your generous help.**

**Secondly, I have sent along in this letter your list of supplies required for the classes your Head of House and yourself chose to have in accordance to your career choice.**

**Lastly, I hope you are coping well with the knowledge I pushed onto you in our last confrontation. I know it must be hard to deal with, now that you know it, but you must not forget it. Voldemort gets stronger day by day. I hope you think about it often, but not in despair. I have confidence in you, Harry, and believe you won't let us down in the end.**

**Best of Wishes,**

**Professor Albus Dumbeldore**

Harry fell back down on his bed once more, remembering his haunted thoughts of the past morning. He also remembered the list he had written into the dirt in the park. He should write it down on something less likely to be rubbed away or seen by prying eyes.

Getting up, Harry brought out parchment, ink, and a quill from under the loose floorboard in his room. He quickly copied down the list he had created in the park, pausing at times to remember parts of it.

Voldemort:

Death Eaters

Parselmouth

Giant Snake

Connections/Spies

Powerful

Oclumency/Legilimens

Avada Kedavara

Scary

Feelings/Touch Hurts Scar

Harry:

Friends

Quiditch

Love

The list, unfortunately, didn't look any less intimidating on paper than it had in the dirt. As Harry read "Parselmouth" he remembered, _Of course! I'm a Parselmouth as well._ Harry smiled as he added something more to his list.

Thinking about Voldemort, Harry realized that as long as he was so far behind Voldemort in power and assets, he would never be able to last even a few minutes against Voldemort in a real duel where Voldemort took him seriously. Besides, Harry couldn't count on his luck to save him in every encounter with Voldemort.

Harry read "Avada Kedavra", _Nope, nothing I can do against that,_ he thought and looked at other assets. _Well, I think Dumbeldore might have mentioned instructing me in Oclumency himself next year. So hopefully I'll be good at that by the end of the school year. Hmmmm..._ "_Scary"? I don't think I want to scare or intimidate people like Voldemort does, not that I appear very intimidating anyway._ Harry looked in the mirror to reassure himself that he wasn't very intimidating, especially when he looked as tired and disheveled as he did before bed.

"Giant Snake", "Death Eaters", "Connections/Spies", and "Powerful" looked to Harry to be where he most lacked. He didn't have a snake, let alone a giant man-eating one. He didn't have a league of minions, ready to be sent out to promote his cause. He didn't have connections and spies, but the Order of the Phoenix did. _Yes,_ thought Harry, _the Order will cover that part for me hopefully._ Though Dumbledore had high expectations for Harry, Harry didn't view himself as being nearly as powerful as Voldemort. _And it's not like there's a way to grow stronger overnight anyways..._

Well Harry figured a giant snake of his own probably wouldn't hurt and a league of minions or Order of his own didn't sound all that bad, especially considering he wasn't allowed to join the Order. He could probably write to Hagrid about a snake, remembering Hagrid's tendencies to "lovable" yet dangerous magical creatures.

Harry took out another parchment of paper and an envelope for later and began to write.

**Dear Hagrid,**

**I hope you and Grawp are having a pleasant summer holiday.**

Harry paused, not quite sure as to how to put his request onto paper.

**I've been keeping myself busy with over-the-summer school work and began to wonder why we never have incorporated any type of snake in our Care for Magical Creatures lessons. I'm a bit curious about them and could you perhaps write back to me on them?**

**See you at school,**

**Harry**

It looked rather lame on paper, but Harry sealed it in the envelope and tied it to Hedwig's leg anyways. Hedwig was eager to show off her own usefulness to Dumbledore's owl, who looked to Harry like one of the school Owlery's, and took a graceful leap off her cage before soaring out Harry's window.

Harry reluctantly turned back to his list. "Death Eaters" stuck out menacingly at him. _Well his Death Eaters can't be that powerful,_ Harry tried to reassure himself, _I mean, a group of Hogwarts students managed to fight them off long enough for help to arrive in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magi last school year._ And then, an idea hit Harry. The students with Harry had also wanted to help against Voldemort and defended themselves unexpectedly well. Also, Harry wanted to help in the Order, but he couldn't as he was too young, and weren't there others who were in the same predicament? Harry's mind was buzzing with thoughts: reform the DA, go out of Hogwarts to thwart Voldemorts plans...Yes! It sounded wonderful.

Harry sat on his bed smiling to himself until he remembered. People can betray like Cho's friend and Peter Pettigrew. People's families can be tortured because one family member went against him. People can die when they goagainst Voldemort.

Harry put his list, ink and quill away under the loose floorboard and climbed into bed.

He didn't want anymore people to die because of him.


End file.
